COLUMBIA – A Senate panel voted 3-1 Wednesday to approve two bills aimed at allowing the state to carry out executions.

The first would shield the source of lethal injections, which officials say would make it easier to procure the cocktail of drugs needed for executions. The second bill would require that the electric chair be used if the state's prison director certifies that lethal injection is unavailable.

The measures now go to the full Senate Corrections and Penology Committee, which meets next week. If they are passed there, they'd advance to the full Senate and could eventually advance to the House before becoming law.

Both bills are proposed by Sen. William Timmons of Greenville, who said "victims have waited long enough."

"I'm just trying to avoid a miscarriage of justice," he said of possible delays in carrying out executions.

South Carolina has not executed anyone since 2011 but not because of the unavailability of lethal injection drugs. The 11 inmates who have reached the stage where they have had to choose the method of execution are still in the process of appeals.

State officials have said, however, that they could not carry out a lethal injection now because all of the prison system's drugs have expired and drug companies have refused to provide new supplies if they would be used for executions.

So-called shield laws are used in 15 states, but opponents have argued states are now relying on inadequately vetted means, including new execution drugs or mixtures often made by compounding pharmacies, and they say those have helped lead to executions that have been botched, with witnesses reporting inmates indicating pain, gasping for air and taking much longer to die.

Sen. Marlon Kimpson, a Charleston Democrat who sits on the subcommittee considering Timmons' bills, opposed them. He said he was troubled by the the fact that some drug companies have told the state they do not want their drugs used for executions and that some drugs have alternative uses.

Kimpson said he is worried the state could find itself liable if families of executed prisoners sue in case of botched executions.

"We're taking away transparency," he said. "It's my position I think we're going to find ourselves in more legal trouble than where we started."

State Department of Corrections Director Bryan Stirling said that he is not aware of the state ever using execution drugs from a pharmaceutical company that asked for its drugs not to be used for that purpose. He said the state would not do so.

Timmons said afterward that he would not oppose an amendment to require disclosure by the state to the source of drugs that they are to be used in executions.

Stirling said he thinks the drugs would come from a compounding pharmacy, which would mix the drugs into the deadly cocktail.

Timmons said he does not know if compounding pharmacies tell their sources of the drugs that they are to be used in executions.

He said while some companies may not want to sell their drugs for executions, he believes opponents of his bill are using the issue of disclosure because they oppose capital punishment. He said the real problem is "frivolous" lawsuits.

"This is not a real concern," he said. "This is a veiled concern to try and fight a logical fix to an absurd problem."

He said he thinks pharmaceutical companies are sophisticated enough to know what's going on in other states where compounding pharmacies are mixing drugs for executions.

Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, chairman of the subcommittee which heard Timmons' bills, said the points about disclosure might be persuasive to him if it wasn't for the fact that other states are finding the drugs and using them in executions.

"It tells me it's working elsewhere," he said. "It's hard for me to get around that."

Kimpson made motions to postpone action on either bill, but his motions died for lack of support.

Under the second bill, the state's prisons director would have to certify to the state Supreme Court after an inmate chooses the method of execution if that method is unavailable. If lethal injection is not available, then the execution would be carried out with the state's electric chair, which has rarely been used in recent decades.

Voting in favor of the bills were Massey, Timmons and Sen. Sandy Senn, a Charleston Republican.